Gimlet Bores In/plot
Chapter 1: A Friend in Need Gimlet has accepted a secret rescue mission. A former Turkish diplomat named Muraz Ismit, friendly to the west, has been captured and imprisoned in Kalashan Castle in the Soviet Republic of Zabkatnitza in the Causcasus Mountains. Gimlet invites his three friends, who naturally agree to come along without hesitation. Chapter 2: The Coast of Doubt Biggles and Ginger pilot a flying boat which lands the team of the coast of their target. They make an uneventful landing and lie up for the night. Chapter 3: In the Unknown They continue their advance and come across the first sign of habitation, a rough hut where a peasant and his family lived. The peasant had just caught a rabbit with his gun but before his family can enjoy it, a troop of Coassacks descend on the place and execute the man and burn the house down, probably because the peasant was holding a firearm. Sobered by this scene of barbarism yet helpless to intervene, Gimlet and co. press on. Chapter 4: A Grim Prospect Sent forward to scout, Trapper locates a deep ravine and then the fortress. Nearby they come across some gallows. Troops of horsemen, dressed like bandits, pass by. Something is happening, so Gimlet decides to lie low in a thicket nearby. Chapter 5: Fallen Among Thieves A man in chains is marched out from the fortress to the gallows escorted by a troop of cossacks. Obviously the man is about to be hanged. Could he be the man they had come to rescue? Admidst this uncertainty, events take their turn. From elsewhere in the thicket, gun fire erupts. Bandits attack the cossacks and attempt to free the captured man. The firefight is getting too close for comfort. Gimlet orders his team to retreat up the slope into a forested hill. The bandits also retreat in the same direction. Gimlet and co. soon find themselves fighting on the same side as the bandits when they have to fend off pursuing cossacks with their weapons. At length the battle is over and they rally towards the sound of a horn. The man who had been rescued turns out to be a Scot, Alexander McAlister, also known locally as "Greggo the Scourge" or Macgreggo, a local bandit chief. He is delighted meet fellow British and invites Gimlet and co. to remain with him and his men. Chapter 6: A Strange Sad Story Macgreggo tells his story. He was the son of a British petroleum engineer in Baku but the Bolsheviks had executed his father and the rest of his family had disappeared or died. He became a bandit as the only way to get back at the people he hated. He band comprised similar people of all races. Macgreggo had been captured and taken to the Kalashan fortress but he had not met any of the other prisoners. He promises to send his spies to find out if Murek Ismit is there. Chapter 7: Useful Allies Three days later, Macgreggo's deputy, Sienco, arrives with news. Izmit is indeed in Kalashan but an armoured car convoy would be coming soon to take him away. Macgreggo also tells Gimlet that old legends suggest there is a path up the ravine to the castle walls, obviating the need to use the main entrance which stood at the end of a causeway. There was also a disaffected cossack guard named Yakoff who could be bribed to help. Based on this, Gimlet works out a plan. They would ascend the path and then Yakoff, on the ramparts would lower a string to haul up a rope. Gimlet and his team would then be able to infiltrate the castle. Macgreggo thinks its a good plan. A team of labourers emerges from the castle daily to cut wood, escorted by their guards. Sienco is secretly swopped with a woodcutter named Abuk before the labourers are brought back inside. Sienco would then brief Yakoff on what he needs to do. Chapter 8: Operation Midnight Sienco comes back after being swopped with Abuk again. Everything has been arranged. Gimlet and co., accompanied by Macgreggo, are guided by up the secret path by Yousouf, an old man from a nearby village who knows the way. At the base of the castle walls, Macgreggor finds the string and ties a rope to it which is pulled up and made fast. As Cub is the lightest, he volunteers to go up first. The climb is easier than he expected but at the top, he doesn't find Yakoff. Instead, Governor Vladimir Karzoff and his three bodyguards are waiting for him. Cub just has time to shout to the others that it's trap before he is bundled off to Karzoff's office. Chapter 9: Karzoff Runs True to Type Karzoff tells Cub that Yakoff had been caught and confessed everything under torture. The governor then stuns Cub by offering to release him and Ismit pasha in exchange for 5,000 gold roubles, and a thousand each for his three friends. Cub could go with the pasha immediately and tell Macgreggo about the deal. Later, Karzoff would attempt to lead a search for them and allow himself to be "captured" by Macgreggo's men. Macgreggo would pay him and give him and his friends safe conduct to the Persian border. Chapter 10: Heavy Going Cub accepts the offer and Ismit pasha is brought to the office. Cub questions Ismit to confirm that he is the right man and then they are brought to the ramparts and lowered the way they came up. In the dark, Cub and Ismit cannot see the path down the rock so they wait for daylight. At dawn, they can more easily see the path but they can also be seen by guards on the rampart. Soon they have to make their way down from cover to cover, dodging bullets all the while. After much effort, they make it down to the gulley and then up the hill into the forest where they rest. Chapter 11: No Rest for the Weary After a brief sleep, Cub wakes to see three armoured cars emerging from the castle. Down the road he suddenly hears an explosion. He realises his mistake. He had failed to warm Gimlet in time. Now he and Macgreggo, not knowing Ismit has been freed, are attacking the armoured car convoy with a view to rescuing the pasha. Worse, Cub sees Sienco and Copper with some men attacking the castle. They must be looking for him. Cub runs after them to try to straighten things out. Cub finds the castle gates locked. Copper must have ordered them shut after getting in, to secure his rear. Now cossacks appear to be heading for the causeway, obviously retreating from the armoured car ambush back to their base. Cub is trapped and heads for the guard house at the head of the causeway. It's a good defensive position but he would eventually be overwhelmed. Just at this time, there is a torrent of people running out of the castle--Sienco had released the prisoners! They rush down the causeway, forcing the cossacks to retreat. Chapter 12: Explanations Cub meets Copper and they collect the pasha and go to Gimlet to report. Meanwhile, Karzoff had carried out his part of the scheme by riding out towards Macgreggo's men. They, of course did not know of him surrendering so they fire on him, forcing him to retreat and hop into one of the armoured cars. The road ahead is blocked, so his car attempts to reverse towards the castle. But this way has also blocked by logs. The car tries to manouevre around the obstacles but ends up plunging into the ravine. Chapter 13: Macgreggo Makes a Decision Back at the bandit camp, Macgreggo asks if he could go back to Britain with Gimlet--he very much wants to see Scotland, the land of his ancestors. Gimlet says he is most welcome to come with them. Accompanied by Sienco and some brigands, Gimlet and the rest of the party make their way to the coast, dodging land and air patrols. Chapter 14: Through the Net They make it back to the cave where they hid their dinghy. Unfortunately, as the time for deprture approaches, a group of soldiers set up a mobile search light on the cliffs above them. Gimlet, Trapper and Copper have to take it out first before they can push off in their boat. The surrounding sea is being patrolled by a destroyer and it is getting closer even as they can hear an approaching aircraft. Then there is a light in the distance and the destroyer mysteriously turns away towards the light. Ginger would later explain that this was a light on their spare dinghy which had been launched as a decoy for the enemy ship. Biggles lands his flying boat safely and Gimlet and co. pile on board and are then taken home. Category:Plot summaries